Denmark, John

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38 THE OPEN COURT.the first ti'ho came out was covered all over with red hair like ashaggy fur, so that Esau would have resembled a young orang-utan. The fact that the Edomites had more body-hair than theIsraelites is suggested also in the story of Rebecca's stratagemin disguising Jacob, so that his father mistook him for Esau (Gen.xxvii. 16). The hairiness of the Edomites was no doubt muchexaggerated in Israelitish legends."^ We need not suppose that David'sancestors were completely coated with hair like our Miocene pre-cursors, or that they were a hairy race like the Ainu of Japan ; eventhe Ainu have not more body-hair than many Europeans, especiallyamong the Russian peasantr)' ; but the ancient Edomites may havehad shaggy black hair covering the back and the chest.The name Edom is explained in the story of Esau selling hisbirth-right for a lentil-soup, which we find in Gen. xxv. 29-34; Esausaid to Jacob, Let me gulp down this red (or brown) stuff (Heb.adorn). A dish of lentils stewed with onions, rice, and oil, or smallbits of meat and fat is still common in the East ; the color of it isdarkish-brown."" We may therefore conclude that the color of theEdomites was brown, and that David had an olive complexion andblack hair.[to be continued.]THE UXTMPORTAXXE OF BEING CHRISTIAN.r.Y JOHN DENMARK.ITALKED not long ago with one of America's greatest Jewishleaders as he sat by the fireside with his family. His was anideal home full of enlightenment and love. It was what we havelearned to call a "Christian home." As we talked together of theproblems of labor and social reform that confront us, I realized thetrue nobility and unselfishness of the man. Then the thought cameto me, "How ridiculous it would seem for me to say that he was(bean, German Boltiic, apart). One of the men present tliought this veryclever; so, when he came liome to (hnncr, he asked for some beans. He wastold there were no beans, but he might liave some peas. He said. All right,let me have some peas. He set one pea apart, and asked, Wliat is this? Whenthe family gave it up, he said triumphantly, Why, this is Napoleon!"" When we speak of some one having been horn in the purple or with asil'irr spoon in his moulh or an the wrong side of the blanket, we do not expecta literal interpretation of these phrases."» Sec Hastings' Dictioiuirv of the Bible, Vol. 3, p. 95a ; contrast Vol. 2,p. 28a.THE UNIMPORTANCE OF BEING CHRISTIAN. 39damned for his unbelief while I was saved by my Christianity."He had more of love and patience and idealism than I would everhave. He could convert me to Judaism sooner than I could winhim to Christianity.But I did not try to convert him to Christianity because I real-ized the unimportance of being Christian.What I felt has been tacitly agreed upon by most Christians fora long time. Proselyting for the Christian religion has becomea lost art. I mean real proselyting. When young men and womenwho have been surrounded by church influences all their lives finallyreach the age of decision, their entrance into organized Christianityis as automatic and inevitable as their entrance into society. Infact it is little else but an entrance into moral society under thecareful guidance of anxious parents. Put the same kind of chil-dren with the same kind of parents into Arabia and the apples wouldfall as readily into Mohammedan baskets.When Billy Sunday preaching in a Christian nation after Chris-tianity has been on trial for nearly two thousand years succeeds inwinning several thousand converts to Christianity he is hailed as aremarkable teacher. He is a remarkable teacher. His success standsout in striking contrast to the failure of almost every other evan-gelist who has had the courage to preach Christianity in all itsnakedness.It requires no special investigation to discover that most peoplein America are genuinely indifferent to all that conversion implies.They are quite heedless of the preachers' solemn question, "Wherewill you spend eternity?" They do not know where they will spendeternity and they are quite certain that Christianity will not en-lighten them in the matter. In the South and especially among theforeign workingmen who operate many of our greatest industries,hundreds are buried without funerals, utterly scornful even in theirgrief of the churches' teaching concerning life and death.In opposition to this wide-spread indifference there are twoclasses of preachers who are successful in their proselyting, modemand genial pastors who never preach Christianity, and the vaudevilleevangelists who by their magnetic power shock people out of theirnormal littleness.I belong to the first class. I have converted many people to myown conceptions of morality and religion with the help of Biblicalphrases and the authority which the Church has given me, but Ihave never converted any one to the religion of Jesus Christ. Fora long time I thought that I was a Christian evangelist. Now I40 THE OPEN COURT.know that there are very few Christian evangeHsts, and that theastute businessmen and special pleaders who fill our city pulpitsare converting men not to Christianity but to certain moral standardsof optimism, honesty, self-confidence and ambition that will guaran-tee their success in the present social system. If I, as a city pastor,should suddenly declare that unless my congregation abandonedtheir earthly work, took no thought for the morrow, trusted in Godso much that the food supply should be obtained by prayer to theFather who promised through his Son that every one who askedshould receive, I would instantly be asked to resign.Men would say that I was preaching insanity. The tragedy isthat they would be right, and I would be Christian.But the professional evangelists who are attempting to defendChristianity are a far more interesting study than the. sensible citypastors. They are the true successors of St. Paul, earnest, enthu-siastic, and successful, because they have reduced religion to acompact formula which even the most ignorant cannot mistake.How delightfully simple this formula is ! Believe on the LordJesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. For the rest, be good!The character of these evangelists betrays them. Even thelaity is beginning to be suspicious of that character. I have metmany evangelists and heard many more give forth the sound andfury of gospel heat, and I have never yet discovered an eflFectiveevangelist who had a good education coupled with sane and carefuljudgment. The foremost representatives of proselyting Christianityare emotional calliopes who play upon the ignorance and emotionalhunger of their audiences. Some of them are sincere with the sin-cerity created by personal power and exciting success—it is hardfor successful men to disbelieve in themselves and their mission.Some of them are sincere with the sincerity of unadulterated ig-norance. Many of them are emotionally and morally rotten, afraidto face the simplest doubt with candid analysis.The character of the revivalists throws suspicion upon the valueof their message. It is not the falsehood of that message whichimj)rcsscs the observer so much as the unimportance of it. Thatunimj)ortance is due at least partially to the remoteness of the mes-sage of the Bible.The Bible is not only inconiprchensiljle to the average man : itis incom])rchensible to most scholars. This is not because of anyunusual (le])th of reasoning but because it is the work of contradic-tory, untrained minds, speaking a language which we do not com-pletely understand, and setting forth a view of life which we canTHE UNIMPORTANCE OF BEING CHRISTIAN, 41appreciate only by the systematic stretching of a trained imagination.We cannot understand the Bible unless we can "put ourselves back"into Palestine and catch a glimpse of the world as it appeared toJewish prophets and priests. And when, after years of specialtraining, the scholar succeeds in realizing something of the realBiblical view-point, he sees how little vitality there is in the messagewhich ancient Jewish sages bring to us.Let me make my own confession in regard to the Bible. I havenever enjoyed reading it until there was placed in my hands amodem English version that put in clear, twentieth-century phrasesthe chapters that in the old King James version had regularly putme to sleep on Sunday afternoon. The enjoyment then was short-lived. The effect of this modern-speech version was startling. Whencompared with the works of almost any successful writer of myexperience, the Bible stood out as ineffably dull not only in itssubject-matter but in its style. How pedantic were the epigramsof Jesus ! How easily the American preacher could equal the lettersof St. Paul if he chose to write letters to his flock! How puerilewere the rhapsodies of Revelation!When I saw how outworn superstition was freely mixed withmystical epigram, I was tempted to throw the whole thing away.But the deep, bass voice of my professor of homiletics kept ringingin my ears : "Young men, use the Scriptures ! No book in theworld has such power over the thoughts and imagination of menas the Bible. If you want to convince men of your opinions, usethe Bible."So I have used the Bible, although I have used it with anincreasing sense of its real unimportance. I have seen many livestransformed by faith in the Bible but I have never yet seen a lifetransformed by the Bible. The distinction is important. The bonesof St. Anna have never yet killed a germ or straightened a muscle.but the absolute conviction of scores of people that the straighteningand germ-killing would be accomplished by the bones has sent backmany an invalid to his home healed and jubilant.When a careful study is made of these people to whom the Bibleis preeminently important, it will be found in almost every case thatthey are either professionals who must use the Bible in the develop-ment of their careers or ignorant people whose range of reading is solimited that the narratives and exhortations of the Bible are inter-esting. In so many thousands of the homes of our grandfathers theBible was the only serious and vital literature that it became forthem a genuinely sacred book. It contained the only philosophy and42 THE OPEN COURT.poetry they ever read. In a life of endless monotony and common-placeness, it was the only thing that demanded their reverence.But with expanding knowledge, the Bible is gradually taking itsmore natural place with the other dust-covered articles on the parlortable or the bottom shelf of the family bookcase. Nehemiah,Jehoshaphat. and their kind are described in the Sunday school andthen promptly forgotten. In the life of America the Bible has alreadybecome an unimportant symbol, like a literary rosary, to be pur-chased and occasionally thumbed over but seldom to be read.There is another and much more significant indication of theunimportance of Christianity in our time. The moral ideas of therace when frankly examined show practically no dependence uponthe maintenance of Christianity.Even in the questions of personal morals we do not follow dis-tinctively Christian standards. The reason is that there are noChristian standards that can be eftectively used in solving our ordi-nary moral problems.If I consult the teachings of Jesus in regard to wine-drinking,I cannot discover whether I should be a total abstainer or not.Jesus did not know anything about American saloons. If I amanxious to know whether a divorced person can be married again,I find that the teachings of Jesus are ambiguous. Jesus was nevermarried and he knew nothing of syphilis, low wages for workinggirls, or the feminist movement. If I hesitate before entering thearmy and ask myself, "Is it possible for a Christian to be a soldier?"I find that Jesus can readily be made into a Quaker pacifist or aterrible fighter for all just causes. If I turn to the teachings ofJesus to find standards for honesty while earning a living. I findnothing beyond vague moral generalizations. Jesus know nothingof modern trusts, cut-throat competition, and business honesty.In the absence of definite Christian standards of morality,Christianity becomes merely a label for the particular moral systemwe want to endorse. No one can tell the world what Christianityreally is. so everybody's religious business becomes nobody's religiousbusiness. What Christianity really is becomes of no importance.What the moral habits of the race are becomes all important.The thing we call Christianity will live for many centuries be-cause it has succeeded in gathering unto itself the greatest moralr|ualities of the race and in using those qualities to bolster uj) anantifjuated analysis of life and an institution which still dominatesour moral fife. .So it lias become a mixture of the most practicaland noldc truths wilh thf most ridiculous deceptions. In the sameTHE UNIMPORTANCE OF BEING CHRISTIAN. 43breath we are asked to believe that we should love our neighbors,and that a certain fish swallowed Jonah and kept him in the sub-marine stateroom for three days. We are asked to accept the gospelof peace, and to believe that peace can come only through thebelief by all humanity that God became completely incarnate in acertain Jewish prophet who lived many centuries ago.As we confront this queer, impossible mixture, we cannot feelthat it is important for any man to be a Christian. Obviously, theone important task of our time is to work for that society basedupon more equal opportunity which is the ideal of all men whosefaces "are turned toward the light." When we have glimpsed thislarger vision, we cannot help but recognize the real irrelevancy ofChristian proselyting.But the unimportance of being Christian does not include theunimportance of having churches. Quite apart from its func-tion as an agent for the Christian Gospel the church is an organiza-tion of human beings met together for the purpose of reflection,service, and fellowship. In the vast, arid desert of our unorganizedlife any church that brings the people together in fellowship is doingmuch for human life.The old village tavern taught the people of the countrysidewhat they knew of gossip, manners, and politics. That social func-tion was connected with the flowing bowl, but even the temperancereformer must recognize that the old tavern supplied a fundamentalsocial need of the community. It brought men from lonelinessinto comradeship at a time when no other institution served thepurpose. It taught men to know each other and to know themselves.It laid the basis of democracy.So the church is helping the cause of democracy by bringingmen under one roof who think and talk together of the commonmoral problems of the race. It is often dominated by class interestsand unspeakably hypocritical, but to the man who observes all. lifeis dominated by class interests and unspeakably hypocritical. Thechurch is no worse and probably a little better than most of ourinstitutions. It is the only moral forum in thousands of commu-nities ; it is the most natural meeting-ground for those who arestriving to do good. Until we have a better forum for the develop-ment of a people's philosophy and ethics, blessed be the church!It is upon this rock that the enemy of the church most oftenfounders. He denounces the church and praises what he calls "realChristianity." If he had studied the situation, his attitude wouldbe just the reverse.44 THE OPEN COURT.I have become an enemy of the Christian church but not anenemy of the church. I beheve in the church but deny Christianity.I beheve in the church not because of what it is to-day but becauseof the possibihties of a great temple of rehgious aspiration andmoral reflection in the midst of a community whose thoughts arebent on petty things.Ostensibly the church was built on Christianity, but it is nowbuilt upon something far more profound. Its real foundation isthe craving for fellowship and the universal desire of men to knowthe secrets of life. The real basis of the public school is not White'sArithmetic or any other particular text-book, but the desire of thepeople for general learning.Likewise the church. Eject Christianity (as it has already beenpartially ejected), substitute the religion and morals which eachcommunity works out for itself and you have a church more power-ful than ever. The demand for such an institution will never die.Humanity must always go to church to learn more of the greatmysteries of life, death, and conduct. When the unimportance ofChristianity and the importance of the churches have been realized,then the church will reshape itself to meet the needs of a wiser anda frankly un-Christian world.But what of the importance of the clergy?The average clergyman is attacked by his critics for being lazyand generally useless. He is maligned as a parasite and ridiculedas a sexless goody-goody. But he is what the people want him tobe. So long as the people believe in Christianity, the preacher willbe what he is.The preacher is a professional friend. He aims to give adviceand counsel concerning those puzzling personal problems that troubleus all. As the doctor specializes in the problems of the body andthe lawyer in the diseases of the business system, so the preacherspecializes in the problems of goodness. He is often as bunglesomein his treatment as the doctor and lawyer, but he will continue inhis place until society obtains a substitute for him.I^hilosophers and parents are the two classes of people whomust be trained to take the preacher's place. And what a task 1( )ur ])hilosophy has entangled itself in such endless masses of verb-iage that it does not even exist for the untrained thinker. Ourfamily life is so completely broken up that the moral teachings of thehome concern themselves only with traditional rudiments.The preacher will be with us for a good many centuries tocome. He gives to the masses of the people, especially in ruralWHAT THEOLOGUES DISCOVERED IN NEW YORK CITY. 45regions, the only philosophy they ever get. He stands out in manycommunities as the sole representative of education applied to morallife. His philosophy may be, probably is, a lie, but the people willcling to it until they find some one else who is intelligent enoughand interested enough to give them a superior analysis of life in away that they can understand. To them the preacher will be im-portant until they become intelligent enough to see how little oflife's secret he knows and how imperfectly human he is.WHAT THEOLOGUES DISCOVERED IN NEWYORK CITY.BY THE REV. AMOS I. DUSHAW.HARRY, the favorite student of the Semitic department, hadone absorbing passion, and that was to become a professor oftextual criticism. But occasionally he would also take his canoeand paddle out into the ocean of higher criticism, so that he couldnot only reconstruct the text from a grammatical point of view,but could also rearrange the books of the Bible from a historicalpoint of view.He knew far better than did the Hebrews of 2500 years ago,who wrote the Song of Moses, the Ten Commandments, or forthat matter any of the books, chapters, and verses of the Old Testa-ment. To become thoroughly proficient along his line, he not onlystudied Hebrew grammar, but he also studied most faithfully Syriac,Chaldaic, and Aramaic.Alany a night he burned the "mid-night oil" in ciphering outthe hieroglyphics on some newly dug-up Tell-el-Amarna clay tablet.He was one of the seminary's idols. He expected to continue hisstudies for a season at the great universities abroad, the Sorbonne,Leipsic, and Berlin.He zi'Gs destined for a professorial chair.William, or Bill, as he was called by his classmates, was anentirely difi'erent kind of a student. He was a favorite of the presi-dent of the seminary, and particularly of the wives of the pro-fessors.Harry was a worker ; Bill was a shirker. Harry loved hiswork ; Bill wanted to get through as quickly and as easily as pos-sible. He never aimed high in scholarship. Harry was Avorking his

The Unimportance of Being Christian.

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The Unimportance of Being Christian.

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